The Legend of Sacrificed Children

THE TOHONO O'ODHAM Well of Sacrifice

A sad legend of four children given to save a village

TEXT BY BOB THOMAS ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRAD HOLLAND

In a dusty depression in the desert floor, a short distance from the village of Santa Rosa on the Tohono O'odham Nation, a small mound of flat rocks covers a hole in which legend says four children were buried alive.

According to the Indian tale, the children were killed to placate spirits threatening to inundate a village with a flood of water from a mysterious subterranean well. Sometimes called the Well of Sacrifice or the Children's Shrine, the little-known site is seldom visited except by the residents of nearby Indian villages and a few anthropologists and ethnologists privy to tribal legends.

For untold centuries, tribal shamans have maintained the site as a shrine in secret ceremonies carried out every four years. No one outside the tribe has been permitted to witness the sacred and solemn ceremonies that may take several days to complete.

As I stood before the mound of rocks, which is surrounded by newly peeled ocotillo branches (a desert shrub noted for its green, thorny bark and bright-red flowers), I could not help but be moved by the poignant offerings of love left there by Indian families.

There were teddy bears, dolls, plastic flowers, feathers, toy cars, children's school drawings, Christmas wreaths, dollar bills, quarters, dimes and nickels, tips of pungent creosote branches, foam balls, aluminum pans, rubber pacifiers, Indian bracelets and beads, even votive candles.

While I studied the items, which almost covered the mound of rocks, it was easy to visualize an Indian mother carefully selecting her child's favorite plaything, something ripe with warm memories known only to her, and then leaving it here on the sunbaked desert.

No one knows when the shrine was first built. According to Indian medicine men, it was long ago - before the missionaries, led by the famed explorer Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, came here more than 300years ago to convert the desert tribes.

To commemorate the death of the four children, Indian spiritual leaders push four pairs of shortened ocotillo sticks - two sticks represent each sacrificed child - into the ground around the rock pile. Each pair of sticks marks the compass points - north, south, east and west. According to legend, the rocks represent the spot - perhaps the exact spot - where eight elders or priests sat during an all-night prayer conference to decide the best way of persuading the gods to end the flood.

More peeled ocotillo sticks, these much longer, form an outside ring around the mound with four openings, or "doorways," at the north, south, east and west, that allow for the children's souls to escape.

Nearby, in a small oval-shaped depression, is another shrine marked by eight flat rocks set on the ground in no special order.

Beside each of the eight rocks are two peeled ocotillo sticks decorated with bird feathers.

Some believe the priests used the rocks as seats as they sought ways to spare the ancient village and its people. There are no modern toys or anything to suggest the modern world among the eight rocks. Instead, I saw that someone had placed natural objects like seashells, colorful rocks and beads on top of the rocks.

One rock, however, held a different offering - a lock of strawberry-blond hair wrapped around a small stone.

Immediately catching a visitor's eye are two semicircular piles of discarded ocotillo sticks on either side of the rock mound that covers the burial hole. Each pile of discarded branches is about 5 feet high with one measuring about 25 feet long and the other 20 feet.

The huge numbers of old sticks, especially if thrown aside on a four-year cycle, are irrefutable evidence of the ceremony's antiquity. Even given the preservation qualities of the dry desert climate, it must have taken many centuries for the discarded ocotillo sticks to reach the great proportions suggested by these two weathered piles. Even more powerful evidence of the great age of the shrine are the heaped-up piles of acorn-sized stones found around the rock mound.

During the shrine's renewal ceremony, the Indian caretakers rake and sweep the ground around the mound of rocks, cleaning the surface of small stones and leaving behind a soft, silty soil. The gravel that is raked up is deposited on either side of the shrine. Through the years, these tiny stones have grown into raised hills 2 to 3 feet high and 25 feet long that line the path to the shrine.

The ground has to be raked because the desert winds blow away the silty soil, leaving behind a layer of stones called "desert pavement."

The caretakers also replace the offerings that Indian families leave at the shrine. The old ones, mostly sunbleached teddy bears, are removed and carefully deposited into a small, shallow hole in the ground on one side of the shrine.

I first visited the Well of Sacrifice more than 30 years ago in the company of a friend, the late Enos Francisco Sr., former tribal chairman.

'WHEN THE MEN COULD NO LONGER HOLD THE CHILDREN, THEY RELEASED THEIR GRIP, AND THE CHILDREN AND THE WATER VANISHED TOGETHER.'

That evening, in the Indian village of Covered Wells, I listened to the legend of the Well of Sacrifice as told to me by the late Jose Poncho, a tribal shaman and participant in the age-old ceremonies commemorating the live sacrifice of the four children. Under a ramada of mesquite-wood beams and saguaro ribs at his home, Poncho, his lined face lit by the flickering flames of a cooking fire, retold the ancient story that has been passed on to each generation by tribal elders like him.

He recounted the story in his native tongue as Francisco slowly translated the tale, sentence by sentence, so that I could write it down without error.

This is his story: "Many years ago, long before the white man came, our people had a village near a wash. One of the farmers who farmed the lowlands in the wash would find his melons and beans eaten when he arrived at his fields in the morning.

"This happened again and again. From the tracks in the earth, the farmer could tell the eater of his crops was a badger. Finally, the farmer could stand no more, and he decided to kill the badger.

"One morning the farmer came on the badger in his fields and chased him to the wash where the badger began digging a hole. The farmer dug after the badger, intending to catch him and kill him.

"But suddenly water began spouting out of the badger hole. The water hissed and roared like the white man's artesian wells, and the farmer became very frightened. He ran back to the village and told his people about it.

"The villagers came and looked at the water, and they became frightened, too. Eight of the wisest men held an all-night council beside the hole where the water was coming out. They decided to send for the tribe's medicine men who told the villagers that unless the water stopped coming out of the ground, the land would be flooded to the tops of the mountains, and the people would all drown.

"There were four medicine men. The first put a small seabird into the water, and the water receded a little. The second medicine man put a larger bird, like a crane, into the water, and the water receded a bit more.

"The third medicine man put a big sea turtle into the water, and the water went down still farther. But it did not stop, and soon the village was in danger.

"Finally the fourth medicine man told the villagers the only way the water could be stopped was to sacrifice four children, two boys and two girls. He said they had to be the best and the handsomest in the village.

"When the people heard the last medicine man speak, they moaned and protested. But the medicine man said that unless they sacrificed the children, the village and its people were doomed."The villagers, their hearts heavy with sorrow, agreed and the medicine man named the children to be sacrificed. The grandmother of one of the boys named hurried home and hid her grandson by rolling him in a sleeping mat.

"When the villagers came looking for the boy, they could not find him, and so they chose another boy.

"The four chosen children were taken to the hole where the water poured out. They were dressed in ceremonial clothing, and their features were painted with ceremonial designs. All the time the elders of the village chanted to the children and told them of the wonderful thing they would do to save their people.

"The children were fed dishes of flour and water, and more flour and water was sprinkled on the waters. This caused the flow to slacken and the people took this for a good omen."

"Then four men lifted the four children and together lowered the children feet first into the water-filled hole. The children were calm and quiet. As they were slowly immersed, the water level dropped. Four other men put dishes into the water, while another sprinkled flour into the hole."

"When the men could no longer hold the children, they released their grip, and the children and the water vanished together."

"The hole was covered with a flat rock and other stones were piled on top. Four pairs of ocotillo sticks, each pair representing one child, were placed around the mound at the north, west, south and east. Farther back a ring of large ocotillo branches was stuck into the ground with openings at the north, west, south and east.

"The grandmother who hid her grand-son in the sleeping mat ran home, believ-ing the boy to be safe. But when she rolled open the sleeping mat, all she found was a green scum, like the kind left when water recedes."

"The villagers, through the years, showed their respect to the shrine by replacing the branches every four years. But even now we know the children are near.

"When the [summer] rains come, we see seabirds and hear the sounds of turtles and the cries of children, and the people think of the four children in the ground.

"Please tell your readers not to disturb the rocks over the hole. Some Indians about 50 years ago, in the generation before mine, were curious and lifted the flat rock from the hole.

"There was a sudden wind that roared from the hole and would not stop until they put the stone back over the hole.

"We do not mind if people visit our shrine, but they must not leave any metal or give any valuable coins in offering. If they must leave something, we prefer that beads and seashells be given."

"The children like those things.” AlEDITOR'S NOTE: The Well of Sacrifice shrine is located near the village of Santa Rosa on the Tohono O'odham Nation in southern Arizona. The site of the shrine is on the banks of a wash and is easily accessible to visitors. However, there are no directional signs to its remote location because the Indians want to protect the shrine from vandalism.

Visitors interested in tribal lore and traditions should contact the Tohono O'odham Nation Headquarters, (520) 383-2281, for directions and permission to visit the shrine.